East Africa regional remote sensing II

The project will fund TA (long-term services of a Program Manager and a Photo Scientist, and 6 weeks/year of consultancies) and training (long-term U.S. training in advanced RS applications for one Facility staff member and various short-term training activities in the United States and ESA). The project will also reimburse a portion of Facility operating expenses where directly applicable to the goal of improving the management and exploitation of ESA"s natural resources through the use of RS technology; such expenses will include staff travel in ESA to conduct training courses, and supplies and repairs for the photolab. The project will also fund: (1) partial costs of the Twentieth International Symposium on Remote Sensing organized by the Environmental Research Institute of Michigan, in which the Facility will be a main participant and provide much technical support; and (2) commodities such as replacement vehicles and satellite imagery materials. By the end of the project, the Facility will be producing a wide array of maps, derived from satellite imagery, for development planning and project implementation purposes in ESA countries; conducting photo interpretation training courses; and involved in numerous activities which use RS technology to resolve development problems in areas such as agriculture, forestry, hydrology, transportation, and urban development. The Facility"s training capabilities and physical facilities will also reinforce and support activities pertaining to early warning systems for drought conditions. Signatories to the Regional Centre are Comoros, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Somalia, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia. Continued A.I.D. support, which will be provided through annual grants, will be conditioned upon broad-based and substantial participation of other donors; these donors will include France, Canada, the European Economic Community, the Netherlands, and Sweden.